NEC gap

NHAirLine wrote:First of all, the MBTA Providence line should be electrified. That should have been done in 1999, they are WAY overdue now. It's an easy one to do, as they need wire over the third track, a few sidings, and a few yards, and plop some ALP-46's, or ACS-64's or something on there, and contract out the maintenance to the corresponding agency that runs similar equipment (NJT, Amtrak, etc), since MBTA is a diesel operation through and through. The infrastructure, other than the actual wire is there, it's pretty much plug and play.

Sure, all you need is money, which you seem to assume exists in infinite amounts. Please study up on the current state of transportation funding in Massachusetts. At the moment the MBTA has major funding issues just with respect to maintaining current operations, in spite of recent state tax increases that are going to transportation up here.

The connection between SLE and MBTA would be great, as it would enable people to go to and from intermediate stations.

But how many people want to? Are you familiar with South County Rhode Island? Aside from the existing Amtrak-served stops between New London and Providence, you're talking small rural towns and lots of trees until you get into current MBTA/RIDOT territory.

However, I do believe that you need 30-minute headway service to really make the services popular and make sense. And you need the sidings and infrastructure to support it.

.

Right. Thirty-minute headways through the least-populated portion of the NEC north of Delaware.

Fantasies are fun. Public money to pay for them is real, and limited, and should be spent where it will do the most good.

NHAirLine wrote:

TomNelligan wrote:Sure, all you need is money, which you seem to assume exists in infinite amounts. Please study up on the current state of transportation funding in Massachusetts. At the moment the MBTA has major funding issues just with respect to maintaining current operations, in spite of recent state tax increases that are going to transportation up here.

But how many people want to? Are you familiar with South County Rhode Island? Aside from the existing Amtrak-served stops between New London and Providence, you're talking small rural towns and lots of trees until you get into current MBTA/RIDOT territory.

Right. Thirty-minute headways through the least-populated portion of the NEC north of Delaware.

Fantasies are fun. Public money to pay for them is real, and limited, and should be spent where it will do the most good.

I don't want to go too far into politics here, but of anywhere, here should be the place where people reject the notion that we're too poor as a country to have decent infrastructure, to build for the future, be smart about development, etc. That is the notion that is destroying this country. From the NYC area north, we need tens of billions of dollars of rail infrastructure, as well as alleviating highway bottlenecks.

Almost every single thing you have listed has already been studied by various parties and discussed, sometimes at great length, at various places on this board. I'd suggest you go review some of the very lengthy threads on such things as the NHHS commuter rail, Danbury electrification, NEC improvements, Penn Station access, and the Boston N-S rail link to get some perspective.

It is not politics but an objective statement of fact that there is a finite amount of money available to spend on transportation. For example, the State of Connecticut Department of Transportation FY2014 budget allows for approximately $1.3 billion in expenditures, not including capital construction. That money has to be extracted from the citizens of the State either in the form of taxation or user fees. And you're not going to convince the General Assembly to, for instance, allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to electrify and double track the Danbury Branch in order to cut (IIRC) 5 minutes off Danbury-Norwalk running times in order to benefit at most a couple thousand passengers a day-- especially when double-tracking is likely to arouse the furious opposition of every town along the line in addition to the DEP and the Army Corps of Engineers.

NHAirLine wrote: 1. $117B new NEC that goes through NYC, Danbury, Waterbury, Hartford, Storrs, Worcester, Boston
2. North-south rail link in Boston with through service from the NEC to Maine
3. NHHS and corresponding electrified MBTA service from Boston to SPG on the Worcester line forming inland route
4. Electrification and double-track (loco-hauled) of NHHS
5. Electrification and double track of Danbury
6. Electrification of SLE (loco-hauled with 125mph equipment)
7. Full build expansion of SLE to Westerly, meeting MBTA
8. Electrification of Providence Line MBTA
9. Speed up the New Haven Line
10. Speed up the LIRR and drag it out of the last century
11. MN to NYP for Hudson and New Haven
12. Improved connection at New Rochelle
13. ARC Tunnel
14. 7 train to NJ
15. New rail line over Tappan-Zee to STM, 25kV overhead to Suffern, DMU scoots to Port Jervis, M-8's and interchange to Harlem Line to get to GCT, station with elevator connection to Hudson
16. Transit-oriented development projects everywhere, especially along the New Haven Line and Danbury branches
17. DMU scoots on improved Waterbury branch with station at Devon (the parallel one, not the T-shaped one)
18. Cross-harbor freight tunnel, connection to New Haven Line, and better overnight NEC access for freight
19. Electrified freight from NJ to Queens double-stack and single-stack/spine cars to Cedar Hil
20. Waterbury branch to Hartford when Busway fails
21. Willimantic-Hartford DMU commuter service

Yes, these are ALL brilliant ideas that we've never heard of before, why haven't these been implemented? We DO NEED a new NEC 40 miles north of the one that already exists. These are great ideas. Government should just try harder to get more money to fund ALL of these immediately, even the ones that have been shot down before and make no sense. Plus, it's not like we've discussed most of these to death already on this forum without progress being made.

Wow!

The foam is strong with this one!

RearOfSignal wrote:Yes, these are ALL brilliant ideas that we've never heard of before, why haven't these been implemented? We DO NEED a new NEC 40 miles north of the one that already exists. These are great ideas. Government should just try harder to get more money to fund ALL of these immediately, even the ones that have been shot down before and make no sense. Plus, it's not like we've discussed most of these to death already on this forum without progress being made.

Wow!

The foam is strong with this one!

You are in favor of the northeast corridor becoming a polluted, congested parking lot that's impossible to get around. That's your opinion, but I am going to disagree with you.

I was looking at the heavy rail side of things. We also need highway improvements, transit-oriented development, mass transit improvements, and a more progressive toll and traffic control system on the highways if we're going to avoid the already-worsening carmageddon that is going to be far worse than it is today by the 2030's and 2040's. If we are OK with carmageddon, then we should keep under-investing and failing to think big, like we've been doing for the last several decades.

NHAirLine wrote:Didn't Danbury used to be double-tracked? So the ROW is already there. It's just a matter of putting the track back.

No. For the first 161 years of its existence the Danbury was single-track manual block territory with passing sidings. The line is in the process of being signaled, with cab signal territory now extended to just north of Bethel.

Despite your avatar name I must say I rather question your familiarity with the transportation needs of Western Connecticut if you think double-tracking the Danbury Branch is of any use whatsoever.

Ridgefielder wrote:

NHAirLine wrote:Didn't Danbury used to be double-tracked? So the ROW is already there. It's just a matter of putting the track back.

No. For the first 161 years of its existence the Danbury was single-track manual block territory with passing sidings. The line is in the process of being signaled, with cab signal territory now extended to just north of Bethel.

Despite your avatar name I must say I rather question your familiarity with the transportation needs of Western Connecticut if you think double-tracking the Danbury Branch is of any use whatsoever.

I guess if every train was always exactly on-time passing sidings are just fine... Maybe I was thinking of electrification?

Because Danbury electrification has what do do with the NEC gap?

Electrification would gain you 3 measly minutes over current run times (This has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads). I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my tax money fund something more useful, i.e. perhaps a passing siding or two on Waterbury (which is my personal "it'd be nice" project) than stringing wire for 23 miles (or however long the Danbury branch is) between SoNo and Danbury. You're never going to bring the Danbury branch up to a speed where it's going to be competitive with the Harlem Line, and the frequencies certainly don't warrant the added expense of double tracking.

Of all the things the state of Connecticut could waste their money on, re-electrifying Danbury, provided it's not lumped in with the 2040 NEC plan bisecting the state ranks right up there with the busway.

runningwithscalpels wrote:Because Danbury electrification has what do do with the NEC gap?

Electrification would gain you 3 measly minutes over current run times (This has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads). I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my tax money fund something more useful, i.e. perhaps a passing siding or two on Waterbury (which is my personal "it'd be nice" project) than stringing wire for 23 miles (or however long the Danbury branch is) between SoNo and Danbury. You're never going to bring the Danbury branch up to a speed where it's going to be competitive with the Harlem Line, and the frequencies certainly don't warrant the added expense of double tracking.

Of all the things the state of Connecticut could waste their money on, re-electrifying Danbury, provided it's not lumped in with the 2040 NEC plan bisecting the state ranks right up there with the busway.

Danbury has a good case for electrification, as now you can do one-seat rides without the horrible kludge P32's. It would also gain a lot of relevance with the 2040 NEC... Electrifying Danbury is not a boondoggle by any means. Danbury also helps with commutation in-state like to STM, as opposed to just GCT, where it is not time-competitive.

Except for the brand spanking new cab signal system that is incompatible with AC electrification. Read that thread before expending too much energy contemplating all the other things that don't add up to a case for putting Danbury under wires.

NHAirLine wrote:Danbury has a good case for electrification, as now you can do one-seat rides without the horrible kludge P32's.

Why do you think P32's are a horrible kludge? They work just fine to provide a one seat ride on Poughkeepsie service.

Or Danbury service, Electrification would NOT get you more one seat rides, just the same at much much higher cost.
200 Million for electrification and another 150 million for 50 more M-8's to replace current car count in Danbury plus shop margin.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Except for the brand spanking new cab signal system that is incompatible with AC electrification. Read that thread before expending too much energy contemplating all the other things that don't add up to a case for putting Danbury under wires.

Huh? How is it any different from what they use on the main line?

merrick1 wrote:

NHAirLine wrote:Danbury has a good case for electrification, as now you can do one-seat rides without the horrible kludge P32's.

Why do you think P32's are a horrible kludge? They work just fine to provide a one seat ride on Poughkeepsie service.

They took a P40/P42 and crammed a bunch of extra crap in there so that you can no longer walk through to the rear. They aren't very powerful, since they had to put a smaller engine in, and to top it all off, they aren't true dual-modes, they are diesels that limp along on electric. A true dual-mode would run electric to Croton-Harmon or Southeast, and then fire the diesel engine, and would be putting out a lot more HP in electric mode than diesel, and still be 4000+ HP diesels...

NHAirLine wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Except for the brand spanking new cab signal system that is incompatible with AC electrification. Read that thread before expending too much energy contemplating all the other things that don't add up to a case for putting Danbury under wires.

Huh? How is it any different from what they use on the main line?

AC electrification would interfere electronically with the new cab signal system being installed on the Danbury Branch. The new signal system on the Danbury branch is not the same one that currently exists on the New Haven Mainline. But we have discussed this all already in the appropriate thread. I'd give that a look over before going any further.

NHAirLine wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Except for the brand spanking new cab signal system that is incompatible with AC electrification. Read that thread before expending too much energy contemplating all the other things that don't add up to a case for putting Danbury under wires.

Huh? How is it any different from what they use on the main line?

merrick1 wrote:

NHAirLine wrote:Danbury has a good case for electrification, as now you can do one-seat rides without the horrible kludge P32's.

Why do you think P32's are a horrible kludge? They work just fine to provide a one seat ride on Poughkeepsie service.

They took a P40/P42 and crammed a bunch of extra crap in there so that you can no longer walk through to the rear. They aren't very powerful, since they had to put a smaller engine in, and to top it all off, they aren't true dual-modes, they are diesels that limp along on electric. A true dual-mode would run electric to Croton-Harmon or Southeast, and then fire the diesel engine, and would be putting out a lot more HP in electric mode than diesel, and still be 4000+ HP diesels...

first the P32 is totally different locomotive, only reason you can not walk through rear is Inverters had to be located in rear to balance the locomotive, and there is no need for access to locomotive, Amtrak has no access to AEM-7 or HHP-8 or ACS-64

second the P32 was never designed as full time electric, but does not limp along in electric as it has more power in electric than in diesel, its basically restricted in electric due to arcing and due to no dynamic brake in electric as inverter for dynamic brake is used to raise third rail voltage to 1400 volt DC bus.

third I always like to read opinion of someone barely qualified on his Lionel set, who has never operated a real locomotive other than in MS train simulator

LOCKED UNTIL I CAN DEAL WITH THIS TOMORROW EVENING.